Living in the 21 st century without a smartphone and social media access seems unimaginable as it has a large influence on the lives of many people. It is on social media platforms that people connect and communicate from far and wide, making the world a small community. Technology, which is forever evolving, has placed the healthcare industry at the disposal of potential tools to improve health care, engage with the public and patients to educate and promote good health behaviors (Turner, 2017) . Through social media, health workers and patients connect, share, collect, and are exposed to a wide range of information everyday, although not all might be relevant or true. There are many potential benefits of social media as much as risks to healthcare.
The health insurance and portability accountability act (HIPAA) was made legal by the president bill Clinton in 1996 developed by the department of health and human service. This is a set of standards that address the protection of certain health information about a patient that is stored or transferred digitally. Within HIPAA, there are two main rules, the privacy rule and the security rule (Parke, 2018) . The privacy rule establishes standards and appropriate measures taken to protect the private information of patients and set restricts and constraints of use and disclosure without patients’ authorization. The regulations also give patients entitlement over their health information, including rights to examine their medical information and access copies of their health information and ask for corrections. This gives patients control over their medical needs, records, and has access to knowledge of what is being done to them. The privacy rule establishes appropriate safeguards that health care workers are supposed to adhere to protect patients’ information.
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Violators of privacy rule are accountable by civil and criminals law penalties that are to be imposed in that case. Disclosure of private patient information is allowed when the public health is at stake such as new infections of a new disease that is affecting the public. For patients, it means getting better medical choices and seeking compensation in cases of violation of code of conduct by the health workers. The HIPAA security rule requires medical practitioners to protect patients’ electronically stored private information from access by third parties (Parke, 2018) . The use of managerial, material, and technical support is used to ensure the integrity and secure patients' information. The electronic health entity technology must ensure sufficient security compliance and document every security compliance measure.
The law requires that information of a patient will only be disclosed if the patient allows, whether explicitly or implicitly, for the sake of their care or another purpose. The disclosure should also be approved by law and accepted under a principle process that sets aside the law duty of confidentiality and is an approval of the public interest (Turner, 2017) . The disclosures, however, should be kept to the minimum if necessary. The patient should be informed of such disclosures and the purpose, especially if there is the detection of crime. The medical practitioner is supposed to take matters in their hands-on disclosure only when the patient cannot decide while following important guidance on the matter.
Scenario 2 is the conclusion of the situation in the emergency after a night shift encounter with the music star. The inquiry and offer by gossip magazine to provide the photos I had taken for a financial benefit risks the escalation of an unethical issue to a legal issue. It is unethical to use a phone to take pictures in the clinical area and also unprofessional behavior that would be disappointing to the patient and his family. The use of phones is unprofessional because it causes distractions and takes away the concentration of the nurse, increasing the risk of missing out critical information and subsequent medication errors. It is unethical as it increases the risk of breaching the patient’s privacy and confidentiality through leaks of the patient’s information to the public. If a breach of confidentiality occurs, the patient and his family can pursue a malpractice claim. This outcome would be unfavorable for the hospital and also for myself, and it would initiate disciplinary action and expose me to the risk of deregistration and fines.
One thing that would have been done to avoid the occurrence of such a situation is to have rules and regulations that discuss the use of phones in the workplace. The use of smartphones by health workers should be limited as phones, and social media take away the concentration of the worker increasing the risk of medical mistakes. Limiting the use of phones at the workplace also reduces the risk of breach of patient confidentiality through the sharing of photos that could compromise privacy. To mitigate the issue and to prevent it from happening in the near future would be to provide education to the health workers on the risk of breach of confidentiality with social media use (Turner, 2017) . Health workers empowered with information on the effects of social media and phone usage at the workplace would be able to act professionally and reduce risks of incidences of breach of patient privacy, confidentiality, safety, and quality of care.
The use of social media and smartphones have has several benefits that have made healthcare provision to patients flexible and easy. In this age and time, social media is an influential platform popular for information and communication. The use of smartphones and social media by nurses is a very common and widespread practice. The health practitioners use the network to share ideas, create, forums and get new innovative information which is important in promoting professional development (Parson, 2019) . The nurses and other medical practitioners also use the platform to contact and mobilize the people involved in the forums and upcoming events on the development of health.
Social media ensures that the medicals practitioner keeps in touch with current trends affecting the health care system. Despite the many advantages that social media has, it also has its downsides. Social media even to other professions is a major distraction that has left many on the verge of tarnishing their code of conduct. Nurses when distracted by social media are not able to be at their best performance hence producing low quality work for the patients (Parson, 2019) . Spending time on social media especially on entertainment wastes a lot of productive time that could be used forging relationships with clients. Information on social media platforms put the nurse and the client at a vulnerable position since it can be taken by any person and distorted to fit their purpose.
In conclusion Nurses and health practitioners according to the professional and ethical are not allowed to display patients' information on social media regardless of their status unless there is a verified need. This includes images and data that would disclose the identity of a patient. The health practitioners should also consider carefully and critically if the information they are about to share will cause any harm or damage to their image or the patients or their relationship to the outside world.
References
Turner, J. S. (2017). Social Media and Healthcare: An Analysis Of Research And Limitations. New York. Springer publishers.
Parke, J. (2018). Take two and Tweet me in the Morning: How Social Media is Reshaping Health Care. California. Sage publishing.
Parsons, S. (2019). Qualitative Study of Faculty Experiences with Social Media and FERPA (Doctoral dissertation, Capella University).
